There was recently some discussion on the gaming reddit about an old NES game called Treasure Master. By most accounts*, it wasn't a particularly notable game, except for a contest that it was designed around.As advertised on the box (and in Nintendo Power), players had several months after the 1991 release to practice playing it. Then, in a live and much-anticipated MTV event, a secret password was revealed. Entering this password opened up a bonus level at the end of the game, and at the end of the level was another secret code that was worth thousands of dollars in cash and prizes: You had twelve hours to race through the game, reach and beat the never-before-seen final level, and call into a special 1-900 number. If you were the first to do it, they'd send your family to the Superbowl. If you were one of the next 250 people, you'd get the brand-new, just-released Super Nintendo. But you only had until midnight to claim it!
Anyway, that's kinda where the story ends. Shockingly, there's almost nothing on the Internet documenting who won, whether the company actually delivered, what the code at the end was, or how it might have been possible for someone to cheat, bypass all the rules, and totally steal the contest. Nintendo claimed the security system was proven unbreakable by MIT and the CIA (really), but we have our doubts. It's quite a story, and yet very few people know anything about it.Well, we here at reddit thought this should be rectified. And so, we're organizing the Great 2009 Treasure Master Hack-a-Thon. We're sure that with the combined efforts of /r/gaming, /r/programming, /r/netsec, and the rest of the reddit world, it'll crack like a nut.
When the reddit community puts their mind to something, great things happen. Follow along in /r/TreasureMaster. And spread the word.
*A really terrific (but completely profane) review can be found on YouTube. The reviewer is like Lewis Black, but angrier.
